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.He flipped out the data-slate which he had secreted in his storm-coat pocket for two days and consulted the crystal's data.Calling up Trooper Rafflan, he took the speaker-horn from the field-caster on his back and relayed further orders.His units would scout ahead and the Mordians, advancing in their wake, would lay behind until he signalled.It was now local noon.Turning back to his men, Gaunt saw Major Rawne nearby, standing in a grim hunch, his lasgun hanging limply in his hands.Gaunt had all but refused to allow Rawne to join them, but the hexathedral medics had pronounced him fit.He was a shadow of his former self since the torture by the Jantine and that mysterious robed monster which Larkin had shot.Gaunt missed the waspish, barbed attitude that had made Rawne a dangerous ally - and a good squad leader.Feygor, his adjutant, was here too, his life owed to Dorden.Feygor was a loose can­non now, an angry man with an axe to grind.He'd railed against the Jantine in the barracks and cursed that they were sharing this expedition.Gaunt feared what might happen if theGhosts and the Jantine crossed on Epsilon, particularly without Rawne sharp enough to keep his adjutant in line.What will happen will happen, Gaunt decided, hearing Fereyd's counsel in his head.He checked his bolt gun for luck and was about to turn and tell Milo to play up when the shiv­ering notes of a march spilled from the chanters of the Tanith pipes and echoed across the curl of the valley.They were here.Now they would do this.TwoLord General Dravere's Command Leviathan, a vast armoured, trundling fortress the size of a small city, crawled forward across the loamy soil of the lowland slope overlooking one of the main dispersal sites for the Primaris target.At its heart, Dravere, swung around in his leather command g-hammock.He was in a good mood.Thanks to his urgent requests, Warmaster Macaroth had personally instructed him to the command of the Epsilon offensive.The fool! Here lay the secret which the freak-beast Heldane had told him of on Fortis Binary.The reward.The prize that would win him every­thing.Dravere had spent two days reviewing the available data on Menazoid Epsilon before the drop.Little more than a moon compared to its vast partner Sigma, it was reckoned to be a shrine world to the Dark Powers.Vast, mouldering structures of inexplicable ancient design dominated the northern uplands, arranged in patterns that could only be appreciated from high orbit.The vast bulk of the Chaos legions arrayed against them had dug in to defend their cities on the primary world, but intelligence reports had picked up hints of an unknown mass of defence established here.It was dear, though there was no obvious wealth or value to the moon-world, that the foe regarded it as significant.Why else would they have risked splitting their forces?Dravere had heard talk of simply obliterating Epsilon from orbit, but had fiercely vetoed the navy plan.He wanted Epsilon taken on the ground, so that they might capture and examine whatever it was here the enemy held in such regard.That was the authorised explanation for this assault.Dravere knew more.He knew that the fact the rebellious Gaunt had requested this theatre alone made it significant.Dravere readied himself.He knew how to use manpower.He had based his career upon it.He would use Gaunt now.Hie commissar had not given up the priceless data, so they would instead use Gaunt to lead them to it.Dravere pulled on a lever to rotate his command hammock, speed-reading the deposition reports from the repeater plates that hung around his station.He linked in with the Command Globes of Marshal Sendak and Marshal Tarantine, who were overseeing the assaults on target locations Secundus and Tertius respectively.They reported their dispersal complete and their forces in advance.No contact with any enemy thus far.The afternoon was half gone, and the first day with it.Dravere was unhappy that fighting had not yet begun at any of the three battle fronts, but he was gratified in the knowledge that he had supervised the landing of an expeditionary force of this size, divided between three targets, in less than a single day.He knew of few Imperial Guard commanders who could have done the same in treble that time.He selected other plates and surveyed the disposition of the army under his direct command, the Primaris invasion.The infantry regiments were down and advancing strongly from the dispersal sites, and the motorised armour were disembarking from their landing craft into the lower valleys.He was pushing on three prongs to encircle the ancient mountainside structures of Shrine Target Primaris, fanning his armour out to support three infantry advances, led by the Mordian to the west, the Lattarü to the east and the Tanith to the south.So far there had been no sign of an enemy to engage.No sign at all, in fact, that there were anything other than Imperium forces alive on Epsilon.Dravere took up a stylus and inscribed a short message on a data-slate to Colonel Flense of the Jantine.Flense would be his eyes and ears on the ground, tailing the Tanith Ghosts and standing ready to intercede.Gaunt's advance was the only one he was interested in.Dravere coded the message in Jantine combat-cant and broadcast it to the Patricians on a stammered vox-burst.Flense would not fail him.He sat back in his harness and allowed a smile to cross his thin lips.He knew this gambit would cost him, but he had livesenough to pay.The lives of the fifty thousand infantry under his command here on Epsilon.He considered them a down-payment on his apotheosis.He decided to take the opportunity to rest and meditate [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]